A Far Better Thing
by Stormcloud Empath
Summary: PostForgetMeKnot, Steed reflects on Emma, love and Sydney Carton. Warning, this will become Alternate Universe.
1. Sydney Carton

Disclaimer: The Avengers went off the air eighteen years before I was born.  Thus, I don't own it.

(AN: This story is a two-shot.  Begins perfectly canonical, but will turn AU.  You have been warned.)

**A Far Better Thing, Part 1**

'Rah-boom-dee-ay,' John Steed heard himself say, his eyes twinkling and his genteel smile firmly in place.  He did not wish to offend Miss King-she had been quite amiable during the last twenty-four hours or so that he had known her-but he had to rely on every instinct of his spy training to keep from roughly taking her by the arm, escorting her outside and locking the door behind her.  Actually it was Mother to whom he wished to direct this angry gesture, but at this point anyone remotely associated with the Ministry would do.

Emma Peel had just walked out of his life, with a cryptic smile and a jocular warning about diabolical masterminds.  He was not in the least amenable to company at a moment such as this.  What he craved was a few hours of solitude to let the entire fantastic affair sink in, with only a glass of vintage champagne for company.  He had no room in his thoughts to absorb the nervous prattling of a largely inexperienced agent.

Steed shook himself mentally.  He was being too harsh.  It wasn't her fault Mother had chosen her to disrupt his troubled reveries.  He resigned himself to listening, or pretending to listen, intently to what Miss King had to say, occasionally offering a congenial response.  She was a fair conversationalist, but Steed barely registered that fact.  Bantering with Miss King was far less satisfying than bantering with Mrs Peel, who could finish his sentences and frequently did.  He could also do the like for her.

Miss King took her leave an hour hence, apologising for some preexisting dinner engagement.  Steed showed her out, all cordiality, and counted to 40 before breathing a sigh of relief.  Alone at long last, Steed poured himself a glass of champagne and relaxed in an armchair, allowing himself to give in to the cloud of gloom that had pervaded his mind since watching Mrs Peel drive away with her husband.  No. . .not Mrs Peel.  It was over, their partnership had ended-he could call her Emma now.

Unbidden, Steed's thoughts flew back to December of 1965…his first Christmas with Emma.  He remembered how she had conducted herself then, as the psychics had tried to pry secrets from the catacombs of his brain.  She had been true to him, fighting off both friends and enemies to reach him when she'd thought he was in danger.  That Christmas was also, he recalled, the first time she had offered an affectionate gesture towards him, wrapping an arm about his shoulders as they sang 'Green Grow the Rushes Go.'  He had reciprocated eagerly.  The memory was painful now.

Had he loved her even then?  Steed didn't know; he had always been a ladies' man and had continued to wine and dine various beautiful women during his partnership with Emma.  She never minded that much, instead taking the opportunity to tease him, to chide him about the lack of mental agility of so many of his flames.  On that point, he had to concede she was right.

One thing was for certain.  If nothing else, Emma had been his best friend.  They had done everything together, shared virtually every second with one another.  They had clicked from the start.  That was something Steed treasured about his talented amateurs.  Apart from being smarter and more resourceful than the vast majority of Ministry trainees, Emma and her predecessor, Cathy Gale, had understood him in a way that few could begin to comprehend.  Of course, in Mrs Gale's case it had ignited hostilities between them, but she had still been a commendable agent upon whom he looked back almost fondly.  A wistful expression formed on his countenance as he thought of Mrs Gale.  How thoroughly amused she would be, if she knew that John Steed was sitting humbled, champagne in hand, for the love of a fearless, beautiful, intelligent woman who could never be his.  That was his comeuppance, he realised with a sting of regret, for having played such devious mind games with her.  Emma had never required such treatment, and when he tried to implement it, she merely chuckled, self-assurance radiating from her slender form.

Steed's thoughts once again drifted to that fateful Christmas.  He had been dressed as Sydney Carton, and Emma as Oliver Twist.  Suddenly it occurred to him how appropriate that was.  Sydney Carton had gone to the guillotine for the love of Lucie Manette, a woman whom he loved passionately but whose heart belonged utterly to Charles Darnay.  When Darnay had been wrongfully sentenced to death, Carton, who bore a strong physical resemblance to his rival, changed places with him in order to fulfill his vow to give Lucie a life she loved.  Steed thought bitterly of how closely Peter Peel had resembled himself, and how he had just condemned himself to a life of misery and sent Emma home with Peel.  He had done it; he had made the Carton sacrifice.  He had given Emma a life she would love, and paid a high price in return.

Sydney Carton carried no regrets with him to the guillotine.  It was a far, far better thing he did, he declared in the last passage, than he had ever done.  He was at peace when the blade came crashing down on him.  He knew he had done the right thing; he had saved not only Darnay's life but Lucie's happiness-he had given the woman he loved a gift no one could ever touch.

Steed was not so composed.  He was not half so certain that he had been right in his decision.  He felt his mind slowly reaching a state of turmoil, the farthest thing from Carton's feelings as he laid down his life for Lucie.

Steed reflected further on the years he had passed with Emma.  Somehow he could not imagine her dusting furniture or scrubbing floors, although she must have done so, as her flat always looked immaculate.  What life had Steed given her?  He knew Emma well enough to know that her thirst for adventure was not easily quenched.  She had inherited Knight Industries at 21, and she had run it successfully, but she had been bored.  After her marriage she and Peel had shared weekend excursions, sometimes dangerous but always thrilling.  It made her confinement behind a desk bearable.

After Peel's 'death,' Emma had mourned for a respectable amount of time, towards the end of which she met Steed.  She drove into the back of his Bentley, which he seemed to remember was his fault-or at least Emma claimed it was, but the question of who caused the accident was of no consequence in comparison to the way it had changed both lives for the better.  Mrs Gale had only just departed, and Steed had told Mother that he intended to find another talented amateur, rather than accept one of the agent trainees.  The search had not been productive up to that point, and Steed had been given one week to accomplish his goal before he was ordered to take on an agent trainee.  Steed's muscles tensed as he realised that he was not even given a choice this time.

Steed had had every intention of keeping Emma on permanently.  With Mrs Gale, he had wanted her to stay but known somehow that her distaste for him would catch up to them.  With Emma there had been no such obstacle, and that only made this sudden vacancy in his life more painful.  There had been no warning.

There was something else, too.  Steed had enjoyed most every case he took on, with a few notable exceptions.  Mrs Gale had not enjoyed her cases, and Steed knew that had much to do with the way he assigned them to her, manipulating her into doing something rather than simply asking outright.  That was a lesson Steed carried with him when he met Emma.  He treated her much more charmingly than he had Mrs Gale, and although he knew that Emma might have been able to laugh at him anyway, he was certain it had made a difference.  Where Mrs Gale scowled, Emma smiled.

Steed remembered Emma's face as she kissed his cheek.  Nostalgia had been written all over it.  Her quip about diabolical masterminds…had it been a façade?  Steed knew that Emma was every inch professional when it came to hiding her emotions.  Had she wanted him to read her face, instead?

Steed's heart leapt.  He knew now why he could not find Sydney Carton's peace.  Emma was not Lucie Manette.  To give her a life she loved, he should have pinned her to his side and waved Peel off.  What fate awaited her?  She had already lost the life of espionage that had been such a great game, and now she was in line to lose even more.  She and Peel would share no more excursions; Steed hardly thought a man who had struggled so long in the jungle would come home with his taste for adventure intact.  She wouldn't even be able to resume her position at Knight Industries, as the new C.E.O. was highly unlikely to step aside in favour of someone who had left of her own accord.  What had he done?

Sydney Carton had fallen in love with a conventional woman.  In loving Lucie, he really had wasted his heart.  But Emma was unconventional; she was bold, calm and possessed of an inner strength that made her practically invincible.  She would survive, but whether she would live or not Steed wasn't sure.  But he knew that, if he had confessed his love to her, if he had tried to make her stay, she would have had the guts to do it.  They might have lived happily ever after, protecting Great Britain from the most ridiculous foes.

His mind racing, Steed picked up the phone and dialed.  There was not a moment to lose.

(AN: I know, I know.  I haven't updated Russians, Rules and Romance in ages.  I will eventually, I promise.  I'm currently working on an HP fic, which needs two more chapters and has been torture to finish.  When I'm done with that, I'll get back to work.  For now, you get this.  After seeing a stage adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, I was inspired to write it.  I don't usually write Avengers angst, so please leave some constructive criticism.  Please?)


	2. Oliver Twist

Disclaimer: Though I labour on it night and day, I have still not perfected the time machine that will allow me to steal The Avengers from its actual creators.

**A Far Better Thing, Part 2**

Steed's heart rate quickened as the phone rang once, twice, thrice.  The anxiety and anticipation he experienced at that moment were unlike any he had known before.  Given his peculiar trade, he was accustomed to such feelings, but they were usually accompanied by excitement and a rush of adrenaline to his brain.  This was different and altogether unpleasant.  Steed couldn't remember the last time he had ever been nervous about something.  He and Emma had both made their share of mistakes, but rather than fretting about potential harms, they merely moved on to the thrill of cleaning up the mess through cunning, repertory tricks.  Steed knew, of course, that many agents were easily frazzled, and that was another reason that he had gone out of his way to find such ingénue as Emma and Mrs Gale, who were above that sort of thing.  But then he realised that Mrs Gale probably had felt this way on occasion, either when he had placed her in danger or when she herself had messed up, as that was not something she did often.

Yet Steed doubted Emma had ever been seriously worried while on a case.  Suddenly he wondered if there was any chance she felt that way now.  He was struck with an urgent need to know what had gone on inside her head as she strode out of his flat and climbed into the car with Peel.  She was every bit as calm, cool, and collected as he-perhaps even more so-and that made him wonder if mentally she had lost it too, if she had allowed herself to give in to a whirlwind of disturbing calculations and conclusions.  His heart trembled as he wondered if she might be contemplating drastic, irrational measures, just like the one he was taking at that moment.

The phone rang a fourth time, and Steed was about to give up, on the assumption that Emma and Peel hadn't returned yet, when her voice poured out across the wires.

'Hello,' said Emma, whose tone did not indicate that she was feeling any emotion at all.  She was still practical Mrs Emma Peel, although the Mrs had taken on new meaning.

'Emma?  Emma, this is Steed,' he began, trembling, but she quickly cut him off.

'I know that.  Do you really think that we could be partners for so long-'

'-without you learning my voice?  No, I suppose not.  But…listen.  I was thinking-'

'I would never have guessed.'

'-about us.  I remembered that Christmas, when the psychics dressed us up in Dickensian apparel-'

'-not to mention attempting telepathic espionage-'

'-I was playing Sydney Carton, do you remember?'

'Yes, of course.  And I was Oliver Twist.'

'Yes, well, do you remember why they made me Sydney Carton?'

'They wanted you to dream about going to the guillotine, and they decided you should play Carton because that's where he ended up.  Why are you asking me this?'

'You'll see.  Do you remember why Carton went to the guillotine?'

'As I recall, he was in love with Lucie Manette.  His feelings were not returned, and he changed places with his rival in order to give her a life she loved.'

'That's exactly right.  I was thinking about it and suddenly everything made sense.  When I let you leave with your husband, I thought I was doing what Carton did.  But I wasn't, because you're not Lucie.  This isn't a life you'll love.  Your husband has probably returned deathly afraid of his own shadow, and you'll be trapped by his side, never to play the games that made your life so enjoyable before.  You wanted me to read your face…didn't you?'

Steed finished his story almost pleading, realising too late that much of what he'd just said had been highly presumptuous.  He hadn't actually met Peel; he'd simply based his judgments on what would likely become of man struggling for years in the Amazon.  And the man didn't to be in such terrible shape from what little Steed had observed.  He was, after all, able to drive.

Steed waited for a reply, but there was only silence on the other end of the line.  This seemed horribly wrong to him.  Never had his and Emma's rapport been interrupted before.  Even now, with this late phone call, she had finished several of his sentences.  Then he crossed the line, and there was only dead air between them.  But no click, which meant at least that she hadn't hung up.

'I love you, Emma,' Steed said impulsively.  'I desperately wish you would change your mind.  I would have admitted it, someday, sometime in the future…and now I can only pray that there is a future.'

Another silence greeted this, until finally Emma spoke.

'Oliver Twist,' she began, pausing for emphasis, 'asked for more.'

Emma did not give him a chance to reply, as this extraordinary statement was followed almost instantly by that dreaded click.

This was no matter.  Steed's heart was immediately buoyed upwards, or at least that was what he thought might be causing the enormous lump in his throat.  That which he had so rudely surmised was true after all.  He remembered a time when Emma had told him that one should never take a man for granted, but one does.  It must work the opposite way as well.

But there was something he had to do first.  Now that he had been made to understand, albeit in a rather confusing manner, what turbulent emotions had plagued her, Steed felt he owed Mrs Cathy Gale an apology.  Apart from occasional holiday greetings, they had ceased communicating, an arrangement with which he knew she was exceedingly pleased.  Breaking a multiyear trend, Steed dialed her flat.

'Hello,' Mrs Gale answered on the first ring.

'Mrs Gale,' Steed began, with slight trepidation, 'this is John Steed.'

Steed could almost hear the scowl forming on her face.  'Whatever you want, you're not getting it,' she proclaimed.  'I was through with you when I left and that's not changed a whit.'

'Nor should it change, as I treated you in a manner entirely unbecoming to an English gentleman.  I'm calling to tell you I'm sorry, and that I've changed.'

For the second time in ten minutes Steed was faced with bewildered silence on a telephone line.  Mrs Gale swallowed, and then asked, 'What, pray tell, could execute such an implausible transformation?'

Steed chuckled and replied, 'I daresay you'll read about it in the society pages in the next few days.'

'I have better things to do with my time than read the society pages.  I'm writing a book on anthropology that challenges a current theory about ancient peoples.  But I think I see what you're getting at.  Best of luck to you.'

'And to you.  Send me a signed copy of that book, will you?'

'Of course I will.  Especially since you simply asked, rather than manipulating me into it.'

Steed managed a laugh, bid her a good day, and hung up.  He quickly got together his bowler and umbrella, then hurried out to his Bentley to fulfill Emma's demand.  He was scarcely able to concentrate on the road, and was forced to swerve in a way that would have confirmed Emma's conviction that she was the superior driver of the two.  Perhaps she was.  They would have all their lives to find out.

Steed reached Emma's flat and parked the Bentley outside.  He hastened towards the building, but found that he didn't need to go upstairs.  Emma was standing at the front entrance, one suitcase in each hand.

'Where's Peel?' Steed asked, having expected at least some sort of confrontation.

'Upstairs.  He overheard most of our conversation, and then we sat down together and he agreed with me…that we were drifted too far apart to share any real happiness.  He was hardly pleased with your assessment of his condition, though.'

Steed laughed, then relieved her of one of the suitcases.  They walked quietly back to his Bentley, stowed her luggage in the back, and seated themselves in the front.

But rather than starting the car, Steed took Emma's hand.  'Thank you for coming back,' he murmured, every inch sincere.

'Thank you for calling.  I was about to give up and do it myself.'

'Has your faith in me paid off, then?'

'Absolutely.'  Just then, Emma leaned over and kissed him lightly.  She started to draw back, but he deepened the kiss, refusing to allow it.  When at last they did break apart, she said simply, 'This really isn't the right venue, is it?'

'That can be easily fixed,' Steed answered, starting the engine.

FINIS

(AN: Thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Anne, Petra6, Cath and esteed.  I really appreciated your comments.  I meant to finish this story much sooner, so I hope the ending was worth the wait.)


End file.
